Beauty Shining in Company with the Celestial Forms
by Minisinoo
Summary: When Edward rebelled against Carlisle's way of life in 1927, what changed his mind and sent him back in 1931? With a side-serving of White Sox-Cubs rivalry, Camels, Plato and mobsters. Written for the 2008 LGBT fic fest. Non-explicit gay themes.
1. Plato

**Important Notice:** If you are submitting links or linking to this story for the purpose of fanfic contests, recs, or other referencing purposes, I'm very flattered! But PLEASE don't link to the version here on fanfiction-net. I ask that all links go to my website version, to be found at themedicinewheel(dot)net ... Simply click on the Twilight bar, and it will take you to my main menu page, where you can find _Beauty, Shining in Company_. The reason for this request is that the versions on my website are the most editorially clean, are better-formatted, include full warnings and other notes ... and they include historical illustrating images. Thank you very much! :-)

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**Warning:** This is an historical, so I've done my best to let attitudes reflect the era, including anti-Semitism, not just hostility towards gays. I do not, of course, approve of either. Likewise, smoking figures prominently, but I'm not advocating it as a good habit to acquire.

**Notes:** This might offer some small explanation as to why Edward is so certain he could love and elderly Bella. Despite the topic, the story is _not_ AU. Also, although I've disregarded info given in some of Meyer's interviews, nothing in here contradicts directly anything we're told in the _books_. Further historical notes at the end. MANY thanks to Britchick and Silly bella for looking through this for historical accuracy, canon consistency and even typos. Any and all errors remaining are mine; don't blame them.

* * *

"What d'you get?" Edward asked, peering over Theodore's shoulder as he opened the pack and slid out the card so both boys could see.

"A fish?" Teddy snorted. "A damn _fish_?"

"'_Do you know why the salmon leaps?_'" Edward read aloud. "Actually, I don't. What does it say?"

Teddy rolled his eyes and passed the card over to Edward as he tapped out a cigarette and stuck it between full lips, lighting up and inhaling deeply. "You're an odd duck, you know. Who cares why a salmon leaps as long as our cook broils it well?" The cigarette bobbed as he spoke. "I didn't want another of those 'Did you know?' cards. I wanted Thomas Meighan -- "

"Nah -- Mary Pickford," Edward replied instantly. He was more than a little besotted with her, America's Sweetheart with her soft curls and big, sad eyes and rosebud mouth. The queen of the silver screen.

Teddy ignored that. " -- or one of our White Sox." They'd won the World Series just the year before.

"The Cubs are better this year," Edward replied, and ducked the half-hearted box to the ear he knew was coming. "We have a newer park too."

"It can't beat Comiskey; Comiskey's fireproof."

"So? The Cubs'll take the pennant -- you wait and see. And the Series too."

"I'll believe it when I see it. They'll choke in the postseason. They always do. And you're a traitor to the South Side."

Edward just shook his head, a smile tugging at his lips as his eyes slid over the explanation on the card back as to why salmon leapt. In fact, he preferred these informational cards to the collections of beauties or aeroplanes or army medals, but Teddy had a full set of the latter. "I've got to know what I'm shooting for here, don't you think?"

Newly commissioned Second Lieutenant Theodore Wells would be joining the National Army in two weeks, shipping out in the middle of summer. Edward was horribly jealous -- of his friend's fancy uniform and fine hat and new responsibilities. More secretly, he was distraught at the thought of being left behind. Just seventeen, he was too young to enlist although he supposed he could lie and sign up, but his parents wouldn't let him get away with it. His mother didn't want him to go to war. Teddy, of course, had been at the enlistment office door at eight in the morning on his eighteenth birthday. He was proud of saying, "I was the first one in that morning."

Truth was, he might have been the only one in all day. Mayor William Hale Thompson had said, "Chicago is the sixth-largest German city in the world." There were a lot of Russians in town too, and none of them were keen on the war either. Teddy, however, was English and Edward was Irish and both were champing at the bit to go overseas. Being a year older, Teddy had been able to enlist that May while Edward would have to wait until next June.

Now they slouched on the steps of the Masen's front porch, smoking and watching well-dressed, Jackson Park Highlands foot traffic and horse-drawn carts clop slowly down Constance Avenue. These new-style houses had wide front lawns, no alleys, and stood back from the street, giving at least the illusion of privacy that the larger mansions along Prairie could command. One could even spot the occasional Ford Model T or Chevy Series H or -- once -- a rare Silver Ghost by Rolls Royce. Teddy saw it first and elbowed Edward excitedly. Edward let out a low whistle. "Wonder who owns that?"

"A Wheeler, a Sears, a Field . . . shall I go on?"

Edward popped him playfully, then took a drag from the smoke he'd bummed. Personally, he preferred Lucky Strikes but Teddy had a fondness for the strong Camels. Edward liked the way they smelled more than the way they tasted, although sometimes he wondered if that might be because he associated the sharp, sweet bite of unfiltered Turkish-American leaf with Teddy. Theodore Wells was everything Edward Masen wasn't, but wanted to be**:** suave, confident, funny, brave and forthright. Loyal, too -- always loyal. They'd been friends as long as Edward could recall. "We shared the same crib and bottle," Teddy joked sometimes. Certainly they'd grown up together in the shadow of their mother's skirts and embroidery hoops, sharing toy trains and wagons and bicycles. And baseball. But Teddy cheered for the White Sox and Edward for the Cubs, and they'd never resolved that difference.

Bored finally with their people watching, they rose from the steps to amble off up the sidewalk, straw boater hats pulled low, hands shoved into pockets so they could slouch as they strolled, rakish and daring in suspenders and no suit jackets, the heat of June as their excuse. "We could hop a streetcar down to 59th and the Lakefront . . . " Edward offered conversationally. "There might be girls in the park."

"Can't you think of anything but girls and their gams?"

"What's wrong with girls?"

"Nothing! Just . . . " he trailed off, frowning. "I leave in two weeks. I don't have time to mess with girls."

Puzzled, Edward considered that. "Charles spent his last weeks flirting with anything wearing a skirt." Charles was his older cousin, whom Teddy knew.

"Charles flirted with anything wearing a skirt even before his draft letter," Teddy pointed out.

"True." Edward let it drop.

After a few minutes of silent walking under a sun hot enough to boil an egg on the sidewalk, Teddy said quietly, "I'd rather spend my time left with a friend."

"Okay," Edward replied, feeling strangely warmed inside. Aware that reply probably didn't convey what Teddy's comment had meant to him, he shot Teddy a grin and shouldered up against him playfully. Teddy shouldered back and they fell to a brief shoving match, laughing uproariously and winning disapproving looks from the more staid passersby.

"Stop acting like rowdy Jew-boys," said a man in a working-class news cap.

Teddy made a mocking face behind the man's back, then muttered, "And you stop minding your betters' business." Edward was faintly bothered, but couldn't say if it were at being called a Jew or at the fact it was an insult. He was neither a progressive muckracker nor a supporter of eugenics, but his mother had been born and raised Irish Catholic until she'd converted to marry his father. She'd told him not to mention that; being Catholic could be held against them. Teddy knew, of course, but he never brought it up; Edward had been christened and raised Episcopalian and could play several of Isaac Watt's and James Montgomery's hymns on the piano from memory. He was protestant through-and-through.

They wound up in Jackson park, which still boasted a few of Olmsted and Burnham's structures from the 1893 World's Fair, including the Fine Arts Palace and a smaller replica of the original Golden Lady that had been formally dedicated just last month. Most of the White City had been removed in favor of a golf course and parkland, however. "We shoulda brought our clubs," Teddy said.

"Too hot," Edward replied.

So they moseyed around until ending on a wooden bridge overlooking a stream. There was nobody else in sight, and their arms rested side-by-side on the wooden rail, Teddy's bulky and muscle-roped, Edward's thinner with fine wrists and long pianists fingers. The stream gurgled clean beneath them, but Edward wasn't sure it actually felt any cooler near the water. Sweat dripped down his face and the back of his hair was soaked. He removed his hat to run fingers through it, fearing he smelled like a horse run full-out and put away wet. He loosened his tie and undid the topmost button of his shirt but it didn't help much, and undoing more would be crass.

Leaning his right side into the rail, Teddy had turned to watch him. He was shorter if broader with strong shoulders hidden by his white cotton shirt. Sweat had made it darker where the suspenders pressed it close. His tie was loose and top button undone as well, and Edward could see the curl of light brown hair at the base of his throat. Unlike Edward who still hung suspended between teen years and manhood, Teddy looked older than eighteen and smelled like a man -- all musk and tobacco and sun. His gray eyes watched Edward from within the straw-brim shadow of his hat -- an intense look, as if he were trying to memorize every line of Edward's face. It felt oddly compelling in the torpid summer heat and Edward bent forward just slightly, reeled in. Their faces were barely a foot apart. Something stirred beneath Edward's breastbone that he couldn't name. Neither said anything, afraid to mark the moment with words.

Abruptly, Teddy looked away again, turning his body out to face the river. He frowned and started to speak, but his voice failed. Clearing his throat, he tried again. "It's not going to be the same over there without you."

"Or here without you," Edward replied quickly. In fact, when he tried to think of life in Chicago without Teddy, his mind went white and blank. It simply wasn't possible for him to imagine.

More silence passed, but it wasn't easy. It hung thick with a pregnant tension that Edward neither understood nor could explain, but there was something here, something . . . he could _feel_ it in that odd way he had, and it left him edgy and taut.

"You know," Teddy said finally, not looking at him, his voice conversational. "You know I might not come back."

"Don't -- "

"Be quiet, Edward. This has to be said. It's something I think on so let me say it once." Edward didn't protest again, and Teddy continued, "If anything does happen to me, I've left you a letter. Remember the book of Plato we read last summer? It's in there. Please don't read it, unless . . . But I know you won't. It just says some things about me. You get the Plato, of course." Both boys had attended the same private school designed on a British model, so Latin and Greek had been a natural part of the curriculum. Edward had finally finished enough grammar that he could tackle Plato in the original with Teddy's help, and Xenophon too. Teddy could read _Aristotle_, and Edward was duly impressed. But Teddy had a knack for languages, and Edward suspected he looked forward to going overseas just to practice his French.

Now, however, Edward was thinking about a long, black casket draped in an American Flag. "You'll come home again," he said fervently, less because he believed it than because he needed it to be true.

"Well, I definitely plan on it," Teddy said with his characteristic droll humor. "But in case I don't . . . there's a letter."

"Okay," Edward said, and that seemed to settle it. He doubted they'd speak of it again.

They didn't. But Edward thought about it. He thought about it a lot until the notion of that letter haunted him like the apple offered to Adam, and he grew mildly resentful. Why had Teddy told him about it, then said he knew Edward wouldn't read it, which of course just put it into Edward's head that he _should_ read it? If he'd simply said it was a letter for Edward if he died, it wouldn't have insinuated itself into his mind the same way, wouldn't have made him wonder what it was that Teddy didn't want Edward to know until he was dead.

Edward didn't tell Teddy these things. Nor did he admit he'd decided, at some vague point, that he _would_ read the letter after Teddy left. He _had_ to. He rationalized it to himself by the twisted logic that Teddy must have meant for him to read it by telling him not to, as he knew Edward's native curiosity all too well.

* * *

The Wells threw a going-away party for Teddy the night _before_ his last night at home. They'd known better than to expect him to go to bed sober with all his old school buddies (those not yet enlisted or drafted) come to see him off. Edward had the place of honor at his right hand. There was roast duck, summer squash, and a number of toasts. Teddy's younger sister Emily kept breaking down at the dinner table until she finally had to flee during the desert. Edward sat dry-eyed, grateful for the amount of wine he'd consumed; it fuzzed his mind and softened the sharpness of grief as their inevitable separation bore down on them. Teddy's departure still didn't feel quite real, despite the fact Teddy wore his uniform and the sisters of their friends couldn't take their eyes off him, whispering and giggling behind hands. He did cut a handsome figure in army khakis, black boots and slicked-back hair.

After the meal, the women retired to the drawing room while Teddy's father, Charles Wells, a respected banker in town, broke out Cuban cigars and fine, single-malt Scotch, and Edward was old enough now to sit with the men. They smoked and drank and argued politics until nearly midnight when Edward Masen Senior rose to depart. Edward Junior, however, nearly tripped over his own chair legs, earning good-natured chuckles. "A little too much giggle water, Eddie?" Charles Wells asked, grinning and clapping his shoulder. "Maybe you should stay here tonight." He glanced at Edward's father. "We'll send him along home in the morning."

Edward Senior waved assent, and Edward feared he wouldn't soon live this down -- unable to hold his liquor so that he couldn't exit the room without support from Teddy, who didn't seem half as phased. "Upstairs you go," his friend said, slinging Edward's arm over his shoulder and helping him to mount the white staircase.

Edward didn't remember much about getting into bed except that he'd probably have crashed on the sheets fully dressed if not for Teddy, who wrestled him out of his suit and into borrowed pajamas, then made him drink two full glasses of water. "Or you'll have the mother of all headaches in the morning."

Lying down with eyes closed only resulted in vague nausea, however. "Read to me," Edward pleaded. It would give him something on which to concentrate.

"What do you want to hear? Poe? Dickenson? '_I can wade Grief-- / Whole Pools of it-- / I'm used to that-- / But the least push of Joy / Breaks up my feet / And I tip-- drunken . . . '_"

"Nothing so grim!" Edward protested.

"Joy is grim?"

"She makes it sound so!"

Teddy laughed. "Very well then -- Plato. It must be Plato, here at the end."

Eyes still shut, Edward sighed. "Plato is good. The higher mind."

He listened while Teddy rummaged around, then felt the bed shift as his friend sat down with the book, followed by a rustling of pages as he looked for a passage -- _the_ passage. Edward knew which it would be even before Teddy began to speak --

"'_But of beauty, I repeat again that we saw her there shining in company with the celestial forms; and coming to earth we find her here too, shining in clearness through the clearest aperture of sense. For sight is the keenest of our body senses; though not by that is wisdom seen, for her loveliness would have been transporting if there had been a visible image of her, and this is true of the loveliness of the other ideas as well. But beauty only has this portion, that she is at once the loveliest and also the most apparent._

_"'Now he who has not been lately initiated or who has become corrupted, is not easily carried out of this world to the sight of absolute beauty in the other; he looks only at that which has the name of beauty in this world, and instead of being awed at the sight of her, like a brutish beast he rushes on to enjoy and beget; he takes wantonness to his bosom, and is not afraid or ashamed of pursuing pleasure in violation of nature._

_"'But he whose initiation is recent, and who has been the spectator of many glories in the other world, is amazed when he sees anyone having a godlike face or form, which is the expression or imitation of divine beauty; and at first a shudder runs through him, and some 'misgiving' of a former world steals over him; then looking upon the face of his beloved as of a god, he reverences him, and if he were not afraid of being thought a downright madman, he would sacrifice to his beloved as to the image of a god. Then as he gazes on him there is a sort of reaction, and the shudder naturally passes into an unusual heat and perspiration; for as he receives the effluence of beauty through the eyes, the wing moistens and he warms. And as he warms, the parts out of which the wing grew, and which had hitherto been closed and rigid, and had prevented the wing from shooting forth are melted, and as nourishment streams upon him, the lower end of the wing begins to swell and grow from the root upward, extending under the whole soul -- for once the whole was winged.'"_

Edward listened to Teddy's voice as he read, and although his mind was sluggish with alcohol, he knew this passage well. He didn't have to be sober to follow it, to be transported yet again by the vision of souls regaining their immortal wings, freed by love to rise up like angels.

Teddy's voice had grown husky as if holding in some strong feeling. "'_Now during this process the whole soul is in a state of effervescence and irritation, like the state of irritation and pain in the gums at the time of cutting teeth; in like manner the soul when begging to grow wings has inflamation and pains and tickling, and when looking at the beauty of youth receives the sensible warm traction of particles which flow towards her, therefore called attraction, and is refreshed and warmed by them, and then she ceases from her pain with joy. But when she is separated and her moisture fails, the orifices of the passages out of which the wings shoot dry up and close, and intercept the germ of the wing; which, being shut up within in company with desire, throbbing as with the pulsations of an artery, pricks the aperture which is nearest, until at length the entire soul is pierced and maddened and pained, and at the recollection of beauty is again delighted. And from both of them together the soul is oppressed at the strangeness of her condition, and is in great strait and excitement, and in her madness can neither sleep by night nor abide in her place by day._'"

Teddy paused, and Edward could hear him swallow. After a moment, he continued, "'_And wherever she thinks that she will behold the beautiful one, thither in her desire she runs. And when the soul has seen him, and drunk rivers of desire, her constraint is loosened, and she is refreshed, and has no more pains and pangs; and this is the sweetest of all pleasures at the time, and is the reason why the soul of the lover never forsakes his beautiful one, whom he esteems above all . . . _'"

He trailed off yet again and Edward waited, but he didn't continue. After a moment, Edward cracked an eye and found his friend gazing off across the room, frowning, his full mouth drawn tight with pain. Compelled by Teddy's sad expression, Edward laid a hand on his where it held open the book pages. "What is it?"

"I . . . " But that was all Teddy got out before he closed the book and rose. "I need to use the water closet. I'll be back."

Too drunk to protest, Edward let him go and closed his eyes again, drifting off despite the nausea. Teddy's return some unknown time later only half woke him. He was aware of the older boy moving around the room, snuffing the lamps and then climbing into the other side of the bed. He smelled of Camels, so he must have gone out for a smoke, too, but he held himself stiff in the bed as if still tense. Without thinking about it and freed by whisky, Edward rolled over beneath the light summer sheet to sling his arm over Teddy's shoulders. "My teddy bear," he muttered, half snorting in intoxicated amusement.

Teddy moved his arm. "You're drunk."

"Well, yes, that's why I'm sleeping here."

"Then go to sleep, would you?"

He did as told, waking again much later when the moon was high, silver light spilling in the window. He desperately needed to piss, but the body spooned against his back, arm curled over his waist, held him immobile with surprise. It was . . . pleasant, however -- which left him more confused yet, and the pressing biological call was momentarily forgotten as he considered the situation. Teddy must be more afraid of the war than he'd let on to seek out physical comfort like this, but Edward wasn't certain that should surprise him. War might be necessary, honorable, even exciting -- but it was also damn scary. Edward was glad now that he'd stayed over even if the cause might be embarrassing. Tonight, Teddy had needed a warm body to sleep beside, a reminder that he mattered and would be missed, and that whatever the future held, somebody would be here awaiting his return -- would even join him in danger as soon as it was permitted. Edward's own fears about the war were largely that he and Teddy would wind up in different companies, as separated overseas as they were with Edward left behind. But they should stand together against the enemy like Achilles and Patroclus at Troy, brave and strong and unafraid.

He wasn't sure what alerted him, a sigh, perhaps, or a too-careful shift of weight, but he realized abruptly that Teddy wasn't sleeping. Turning in his friend's arms, his eyes met Teddy's -- wide open and staring and silver in the near-dark. Edward blinked. It was one thing for a nervous Teddy to clutch him close in sleep. But Teddy holding him this way while awake . . . just what did _that_ mean?

Yet he didn't move away, and neither did Teddy. Instead, Teddy whispered, "You are my beautiful one, did you know? You're the one who makes my wings grow, who makes me long for the higher beauty of our immortal souls -- _eros kai anteros_. Love and love returned."

"It is returned," Edward blurted, startled into drunk confession and realizing the truth of his own words only as he voiced them. "Love for love."

"'_He wants to see him, touch him, kiss, embrace him . . . _'" Teddy turned his head to bury his face in his pillow, perhaps from shame at that admission, or perhaps in distress. "How am I going to bear it, being away from you?"

Edward knew he should be shocked by what Teddy was saying -- by the full implications of it -- but he wasn't. The hour and his mental state precluded it, and the darkness veiled such tender admissions in a cloak of privacy. "I'll be with you," Edward whispered, placing a hand on Teddy's chest. "I'll be with you here."

Teddy turned his face back to see Edward and his hand came up to cup Edward's cheek. "My beautiful friend, my other self . . . I do love you, you know."

"I know." And he did.

Leaning forward, not really thinking, he pressed his lips to Teddy's. He'd never kissed anybody before -- not a girl, and definitely not a boy. Neither had Teddy, or Edward would certainly have heard about it. Unsure quite what to do but driven by the vulnerability of their admissions, they experimented, moving lips against one another until, shyly, they tried parting them. Teddy tasted of tobacco and Edward suspected he tasted of sour whiskey. Rough tongue slid against rough tongue and Edward's reaction was instantaneous. The erection a full bladder had given him earlier stiffened even more and throbbed, hot and moist with leakage. Was this the warm rush that Plato had spoken of? Was he growing wings? He felt himself flow into Teddy's arms, flat chest to flat, narrow pelvis to narrow, insistent erection to . . .

Abruptly, gasping, he broke away and rolled onto his back. Teddy didn't try to hold him. Neither said anything for a long moment; they just breathed. Then Edward sat up. "I need to pee. That's why I woke -- too much to drink." Rising, he hurried downstairs in the dark to the basement water closet where he spent a long time even after he was finished, staring at himself in the mirror above the sink.

He'd just kissed a boy. And he might have done more, too, if sense hadn't come back to him. What would Teddy think of him now?

He shook his head. They'd just got carried away. He loved Teddy like a brother, of course he did, that was all it was. Fear for his friend and sorrow at their parting was all this was. Teddy wasn't _that sort_, and Edward certainly wasn't. It was women's fine ankles and shining curls and sweet curves he dreamed about when his hands did things to himself beneath the covers that he didn't discuss in the light of day. He wasn't dreaming of Teddy.

Composed again finally, he returned to Teddy's bedroom. His friend had rolled onto his belly and was fast asleep -- or pretending to be. Edward had no inclination to check if he were faking and slid under the sheet as gently as he could so as not to disturb him. Edward was asleep again shortly too, and when morning dawned the whole incident seemed unreal -- a night fantasia. Teddy was just Teddy, and kidded Edward no end about getting so drunk. They said nothing of the quiet words exchanged in the dead hours of early morning, and when Edward saw Teddy to the train the next morning along with Teddy's family, their hug was brief and appropriately back-thumping, nothing untoward at all.

* * *

Even with Teddy gone, Edward and his family weren't strangers to the Wells residence. Edward knew that both sets of parents were hoping he'd settle on Emily once they were older and Edward was out of college with prospects. Nor did Edward mind the match, at least in theory. It would make him Teddy's brother-in-law, and Emily, while shy and somewhat excitable, was a kind girl with a lovely singing voice. Edward worried sometimes that he ought to feel more for her than he did if they were truly to be wed someday, but he had more pressing things on his mind at the moment, including his final year at school and the war.

While in boot camp, Teddy wrote postcards faithfully as promised, telling Edward about his experience**:** "_From 7:30 to 10:45 we have infantry drill, bayonet drill and physical exercise. That doesn't mean 5 minutes drill and rest either, we get only a total of 20 minutes rest in that time. We generally have to solve combat problems between 1:00 and 4:00, rain, mud or dust, 28 inch steps at 140 steps per minute on a hike of miles . . . " _But when he shipped out to France, he warned, "_There won't be letters for a while._"

The absence of letters put Edward in mind of the one Teddy had left behind -- in case. The summer of 1918 was drawing to a close along with the shortened baseball season, although at least the Cubs looked set to win the pennant as he'd predicted. One evening when Edward was over at the Wells' house for dinner along with his mother -- Edward's father the lawyer working late on a case -- Edward went upstair to wash, then paused as he passed by Teddy's room. The siren call of the waiting letter sang to him and, furtively, he pushed open the door to sneak inside. The bed was made, the setting sun firing the rich blue-and-gold velvet spread. Twilight was approaching. Swiftly, Edward turned to the bookshelf and located Teddy's copy of Plato. Sure enough, there was the promised letter slipped between the pages. Their favorite section, of course, and sharp and unbidden, the memory of that unexpected, illicit kiss returned to stiffen his spine and dick both. Removing the letter, he slammed the book shut and shoved the envelope inside his breast pocket, returning the book and heading out.

As he passed Teddy's desk, however, a white square caught his attention where it had fallen to the floor behind the waste basket. Edward bent to retrieve it -- an unopened package of Camels. Teddy must have knocked it back there in the midst of packing, then missed it. Edward slipped it into his breast pocket too and left the room. The superstition of youth made him think that if he kept this pack of Teddy's favorite brand, Teddy would have to come home to get them.

All through dinner, the letter burned a guilty hole in Edward's jacket, and when he returned home later that evening, he went through the tedious process of steaming it open in the kitchen after his parents and the help had retired for the night. After all, if Teddy did return, Edward didn't want him to know the letter had been read. Glue unsealing finally, Edward slipped the paper free and unfolded it, reading swiftly**:**

_Dearest Edward,_

_ As you are no doubt aware by now, I've left various instructions for the proper distribution of my personal effects, and the Plato, of course, is yours -- among other things. But this letter will have to represent my final words, and being my final words, I'm free to say the things I've wanted to say for ages but didn't dare. Death unbinds the tongue._

_ It is appropriate that this comes to you in the pages of The Phaedrus, since it was Plato who first revealed me to myself, in whose words I first recognized what I was -- perverse, inverted, musical . . . if no musician like you. Yet it was also Plato -- and you -- who showed me how to master it, make it into a virtue, not a vice. Your beauty and gentleness called me above my baser desires so that I longed for philosophy and a pure heart. You have been my inspiration and salvation, and I have loved you for years. If I pass St. Peter's Gates despite my twisted nature, it will be entirely due to you, sweet friend. My death now is, perhaps, the best thing for me -- that I could die in the service of my country, and before my corrupt nature drove me to amputate my soul's wings. In youth, I am closer to that initiation of which Plato spoke, and my soul recalls the glories it knew before birth. The dark horse, the soma, the body, hasn't had sufficient time to distract my reason._

_ So don't mourn me, beloved. I have achieved both a beautiful death and purity of passion -- I am a soul with wings intact. Greater men than me could wish for such fortune._

_ With all my truest affection and respect,  
Theodore Mitchell Wells_

Shell-shocked yet deeply moved, Edward wept as bitterly as if he'd read the letter for its intended reasons. Then he refolded it, put it back and resealed the original envelope. At his next visit, he returned it to the pages from which he'd taken it, running fingertips over the embossed title along the book's spine.

The horrible thing was that he didn't know if he wanted Teddy to come home now, or if he hoped his friend got the beautiful death he wished for. In some ways, it would be easier if they never met again face-to-face.


	2. The Good

Mid-September brought the first cases of Spanish Influenza to Chicago, carried north and east from Kansas City. Shivers of fear gripped not only the city but the nation. In Edward's personal circle, Emily Wells was the first to succumb and she faded quickly, dying on the same day her brother first set foot in France, although they'd learn of that coincidence only later. The rest of Teddy's family fell ill soon after, but Emily was the only fatality. His parents recovered. Edward's family wasn't so lucky.

Neither was Teddy. Yet it wasn't influenza that laid him low. Only two weeks into his first tour, he had the bad luck to fall victim to a German bombardment of his trench and the last thing he knew was ripping pain and the deafening blast of a grenade. He woke in the hospital two days later, less his right leg from mid-thigh down but at least in possession of his life -- which was more than could be said for half his company.

And back in Chicago, Edward Masen, Senior came home from his law office early with chills.

Edward Masen, Junior never received another letter from Second Lieutenant Theodore Wells. His own death-non-death occurred before Teddy's first missive from France could reach home -- never mind news of his maiming injury. Edward _Cullen_, however, collected all the letters, a backlog of mail that came with the estate he inherited as a "cousin," thanks to doctored wills and the chaos following the pandemic. By the time Teddy made it back to Chicago at the war's close, all three of the Masens had graves in the churchyard, and it was Teddy who climbed out of his wheelchair with his mother's help to weep bitterly and slide fingers along a name etched in granite. "Edward . . . " he breathed. "You should've been safe back here. How could a just God spare me, but take _you_?"

Edward watched from just under a thousand yards away, wrapped in a long coat and black fedora pulled low against recognition and the bitter wind of January 1920. He dared go no closer although he'd been turned over a year. His eyes were gold now, not red. Yet Carlisle had impressed on him the rules of their new life, and he worried less about killing Teddy himself than earning the Volturi's disfavor if he told his friend the truth. Edward might be strong enough not to endanger Teddy but the Volturi wouldn't hesitate, and he'd take no chances with Teddy's life. He didn't need to talk to Teddy, in any case. His newfound abilities allowed him to hear all too well the quagmire of guilt and shame and anger roiling in Teddy's mind -- the loss of faith, the loss of ideals, the loss of his future.

Philosophy had failed them.

* * *

From a distance, Edward followed Teddy's life for a year. Carlisle didn't object, just waited for Edward to learn from experience the truth all vampires eventually faced -- it was too _painful_ to stay close to the humans one had known in life. Edward couldn't speak to Teddy, couldn't reveal himself, could only watch as Teddy mourned and drank himself to sleep each night or smoked far too much. But time healed, at least for humans, and perhaps a little for vampires. Slowly, Teddy began to mend in heart and soul; he met new people and took up with old friends who'd survived the war or the pandemic. After a while, it was easier for Edward to step back and stop playing voyeur as Teddy relearned how to live.

About the same time, a desperate Carlisle came home with the broken body of Esme Platt Evenson. Edward looked on in horror as he realized Carlisle had bitten her. "What did you _do_?"

"She jumped off a cliff; they brought her to the morgue but she wasn't dead yet. I . . . I knew her once, Edward. I was her doctor when she was young and happy." Carlisle's face was a puzzle and Edward could see his foster-father's mental confusion clearly. Even Carlisle didn't know why he'd acted as he had, but he hid it beneath confusion about the young woman's motivations. "I don't know why she jumped; I don't know why a girl as full of love and joy as Esme would choose to kill herself. I had to save her life. I'm a doctor; I had to save her life."

Anger, not sympathy, overcame Edward. "We're not _living_, Carlisle. This isn't _life_, or didn't you notice? You've stolen her soul like you stole mine, and without asking her first either. Maybe she wanted to die. Did you consider that?"

Carlisle shot Edward a mildly annoyed look. "Nobody _wants _to die -- you, the mind reader, should know that. They just don't know how to go on living in their current circumstances. I've changed her circumstances."

"I'm sure she'll be very grateful," Edward snapped. "If you had any real compassion, you'd drain her dry and let her die before the pain gets too bad." And he stalked out of the little house they shared in a small Wisconsin town, slamming the door behind him. He didn't return for days. When he did, it was only to find that Carlisle hadn't heeded him. A red-irised Esme was sitting in the kitchen, calmly reading a newspaper. She smiled at him when he entered and rose, extending a hand. "You must be Edward? I'm Esme Evenson."

"Miss Evenson," he replied, taking her hand to bow over it, giving her his best manners.

"Mrs. actually," she said -- sadly. "It's Mrs. Evenson." And in a flash, Edward saw it all in her mind, the whole sordid tale -- a marriage of families as much as of individuals, none too different from the match he'd once considered to Teddy's poor, late sister Emily. But he'd not have been the monster Esme's husband turned out to be. Edward knew such things happened but it was only whispered about behind hands, brows drawn in sympathy. After all -- and especially before the war -- what could be done about it? What God had joined together, let no man put asunder. Only death was an accepted escape for women in Esme's straights -- hers or her husband's. Esme, however, had chosen the unexpected path . . . she'd fled when she learned she carried a child. It wasn't her husband's cruelty that had led her to leap from that cliff -- no, love for her unborn baby had given her the courage to strike out on her own in a world unkind to such women, and Edward was a little awed by such courage. When she'd lost her son only days after his birth, _then_ she'd lost the will to live. As Carlisle had said, she hadn't wanted to die, but hadn't known how to go on living. Edward, who'd never had even a sibling beyond Teddy, much less a son, found the depth of her despair overwhelming. He hadn't realized grief like that existed until he saw it in her mind.

And he was shamed too; he'd been so sure of his moral high ground. Now he hung his head to realize that Carlisle had been right, at least partly. Edward still wasn't convinced Carlisle hadn't stolen Esme's soul, but the state of her soul didn't seem to trouble her. "I'm glad he saved you," Edward blurted.

Her smiled widened. "Thank you," she said. "I know you weren't happy, and I appreciate you trying to think about it from my perspective, but I'm glad he saved me too." Her graciousness pierced him as much as her honesty.

He tried to accept her -- he did. Certainly he admired her, and she seemed far more accepting of her new condition than he'd been at first himself, or perhaps she was just drunk on love for her savior. And that was the problem. The way she looked at Carlisle -- as if he'd hung the moon and stars -- mildly nauseated Edward, even while he hated himself for the cynicism. They belonged together, Carlisle and Esme, two sides of one coin, and although intensely private people, their joy and radiance as they fell head over heels in love left Edward cold and _outside_. He came to resent Esme as much as he respected her, and how he could feel two such contradictory things at once baffled him until he decided that he had to strike out on his own. He let rebellion against Carlisle's philosophy conceal his real reasons because his real reasons seemed petty and childish and he didn't want to admit he could be petty and childish.

So in 1927, he left Carlisle and Esme behind to live as a _real_ vampire, even while he refused to shed the blood of innocents. Instead, he decided to take the truly twisted with him into hell. Returning to Chicago, he committed himself to help cleanse his hometown.

The beautiful, up-and-coming city that had hosted the 1893 World's Fair wasn't the Southside he found when he returned. The slide down had begun with Prohibition the year after Edward was turned, and if it had no impact on him personally, he thought Dry Law idiotic. The quickest way to get people do something was to tell them they couldn't. And Prohibition _did_ give an opening to men like Johnny Torrio and Big Jim Colosimo, then Al Capone.

Capone had arrived from Brooklyn in 1919, at first a mere lieutenant to Colosimo, but a mixture of ruthlessness and cunning allowed him to climb through the ranks even as Prohibition drove the social wheels that would make Chicago into a haven for the Organization. Yet if going after the mob had been Edward's original mission, he found that getting to vice kingpins like Capone was nigh on impossible unless he wanted to expose himself and incite the wrath of the Volturi. Instead, he satisfied himself with listening at keyholes and passing on information to Eliot Ness's Untouchables. Or he found ways to cut off some of Capone's cash flow. When the stock market crashed two years after his arrival, economic disaster made things worse for everybody -- except the mob, it seemed. Edward took on a new mission as a vampiric Robin Hood. The money he recovered from Capone's operations he redistributed to families in need. Certainly he didn't need it himself.

It wasn't just the sale of alcohol that financed Capone's business, but gambling, bookie joints, brothels and racketeering, or "protection money." Edward decided to turn the tables and demand that one of Capone's sport bookmakers turn over the cash from a recent set of races in return for his life -- knowing full well the man's life wouldn't be worth much after losing so much cash. Such a decision wouldn't end with a meal -- the usual punishment he meted out -- but he liked the poetic justice of it . . . money in exchange for the man's safety (however brief it might be). He feasted regularly now; he wasn't hungry.

It was the stereotypical "dark and stormy night" that he chose to break into the small bookie office where he knew Capone's money handler would be working. It certainly wasn't Capone's main headquarters in the Four Deuces; that was too well guarded and breaking in there would be too sensational. So once again, Edward settled for smaller fish, and his choice of weather -- if somewhat melodramatic -- was also pragmatic. No moonlight would reveal him, and it was too nasty out for the city police to be patrolling thoroughly . . . even if they could have caught him. He made quick work of the guards then slipped, still dripping from rain, through the back door. Upstairs in a corner office, he found a weather-beaten, balding man in a wheelchair, hard at work at a desk beneath a bare lightbulb, sleeves rolled up and ashtray full beside his adding machine. He was sweating over ledgers, calculating profit and risk. The stale smell of used-up Camels and overcooked coffee laced the room.

Edward didn't know what alerted the man, perhaps some second sense, but he glanced up, gray eyes narrow and full lips pursed -- and Edward froze just inside the circle of light thrown by the bulb. There was no escaping now for either of them -- no moment of confusion, no mistaken identity.

Edward faced Teddy Wells twelve years after their last encounter in the flesh, and he could have kicked himself. If he hadn't been so damn cocky, he'd have checked on the bookie's identity, not just showed up here. Now, the shock of it held him immobile long enough for Teddy to pull a gun. But Teddy's mouth had fallen open too and the gun barrel wavered. "_Eddie?" _Edward was unchanged, of course. He would look exactly as Teddy remembered him -- burgundy eyes aside -- and Edward could hear Teddy's mental shock clearly.

Edward stepped back out of the light, but Teddy wasn't fooled. "Edward?" His voice cracked and he rubbed his face. "Am I . . . did I die? How did I die?"

"You're not dead." The words were pulled out of Edward almost against his will. His dead heart would have frozen if it still beat. How could this be? He couldn't do something that would get Teddy killed. He couldn't. But how had Teddy -- moral, philosophic Teddy -- become Capone's man? "What about Plato?" Edward asked, his voice embarrassingly plaintive.

It was, on the face of it, a stupid question, but Teddy understood exactly what he meant. "Plato lied," he said. "The real world is corrupt and you can't escape it."

"I don't believe that," Edward said.

Teddy ignored Edward's assertion to ask the more pressing question. "You _died_ -- didn't you? Or was it a sham?"

"No," Edward said, unable to lie to Teddy even now -- even if it meant they'd both suffer. "It was no sham. I died."

This admission seemed to confound the older man, who rubbed right between his eyebrows. "Then . . . what happened? You got better?" Tense, confused, upset . . . it all fell in on Edward at once and he burst out laughing at Teddy's familiar dry humor, but Teddy just continued to stare. "It wasn't that funny, Edward."

Getting a hold of himself at last, Edward stepped into the light again. There seemed little point in hiding, and at least Teddy didn't gasp at the sight of his dark red eyes. "I'm a vampire."

Teddy let out a bark of laughter himself. "What? Catch the flu and turn into Dracula? Why aren't you drinking my blood then?"

"I'm not hungry at the moment."

Teddy's amusement went out as if snuffed. "Stop joking around."

"I'm not joking. I wish I was. Look at my eyes. Did I ever have eyes this color?"

"It could be a medical condition -- "

Teddy broke off abruptly as Edward appeared -- instantaneously to him -- in front of the desk. "Can a human move that fast?" And reaching across, he touched his friend's face. "Is a human hand that cold?"

Yet touching Teddy again after so long had an unexpected effect on them both. Teddy closed his eyes and sobbed hard -- just once -- and Edward couldn't pull away. The living warmth of Teddy's skin held him like a magnet, pulling him back to a dark-but-less-stormy night twelve years ago, to a tender, whispered confession and a soft-lipped kiss. "Ted," he breathed out, then sucked in breath and finished, "What the hell are you doing here? You're not like this; you're a good man."

The question broke the spell and Teddy jerked away from Edward's touch even as Edward moved back. "I'm broke, Eddie. I'm broke, dad's dead, and life didn't give me a choice."

Edward sat down on the edge of the table. "Your dad's dead? How -- " He cut himself off, substituting, "I'm sorry."

Teddy waved a hand, almost impatiently. "He blew his brains out with a Colt Single Action three days after Black Monday. The Crash ruined us. Completely. He couldn't face it so he shot himself. I found him in the bathtub."

Anguish, loss, and venom laced Teddy's voice and thoughts both, and with the ease of long friendship rekindled as if never interrupted, Edward bent forward. "Tell me."

So Teddy did. It wasn't a startling story, or even especially original. The suicide of Charles Wells had left Teddy and his mother with mountains of debt, a failed bank, and the stigma of a family suicide. They'd had nowhere to turn -- except to the Organization, and Capone had been happy enough to take on a former bank heir as a new bookie. "So here I am," Teddy finished finally, shrugging and stubbing out the second of two smokes. "The pay's good and I have all the whiskey I want." He patted the stump of his right leg. "It still hurts. Ghost pain, they call it, but it's a hell of a note when 'ghost pain' keeps you up at night. Liquor helps. And cannabis. Capone supplies me with both."

Despite the matter-of-fact tone, Edward could see the despair eating Teddy's mind as he related his story. He was out of alternatives and the only thing keeping him alive was the knowledge that his poor mother's heart wouldn't survive it if he opted for his father's escape. He was all she had left now, and Teddy had always been a good son, responsible. Edward was sharply reminded of Esme and the overwhelming sense of being TRAPPED. Teddy didn't even have the outlet of a wife to care for him -- or a lover. There had been no one after Edward, at least none he'd cared for, only furtive encounters in toilet tea rooms and the dark corners of hidden basement speakos catering to "those people." Perhaps Edward should have been horrified, but he wasn't the naive seventeen-year-old anymore, and a virgin only in physical fact, not in knowledge. So rather than horror, his decade-dead heart broke even as his resolve stiffened.

"I'm getting you and your mom out of town," he said, standing so fast it made Teddy start.

"Are you out of your mind? People don't leave the Organization, Edward. It's not an option."

"Not an option for normal people. I'm not normal, or human, and I'm getting you out. Tonight."

Teddy's eyes narrowed. "How did you get this way? A vampire? And what did you come here for in the first place? It wasn't to find me. You were as startled as I was. I don't even know how the hell you got inside the building. It's _guarded_."

"Not anymore," Edward said. "We're the only people alive in here. Well, technically, you're the only person alive in here."

Teddy gaped. "How much muscle have you got working for you?"

"None."

"Edward -- "

But Edward had picked up the gun Teddy had discarded on the desk top and handed it to his friend, handle-first. "Shoot me."

_"What?"_

"Shoot me. Don't worry, you can't hurt me. And I'm dead anyway, remember?"

Teddy dropped the gun as if it burned him. "Don't be a jackass."

Retrieving the gun again, Edward raised it to his own head and pulled the trigger.

Only after he'd done it did he realize how Teddy -- survivor of the trenches and son to a man who'd shot himself -- would react. He'd meant only to prove a point but Teddy let out a wild shout and dove right out of his wheelchair under the desk, falling in the process of course, as he lacked two legs, and banging his head. Horrified at the flashbacks streaking through Teddy's mind -- the blood of war and blood on white bathroom tile -- Edward dropped to his knees and clasped his friend to him, holding on as tightly as he dared with his unnatural strength. "It's okay, it's okay -- it's me. It's now. It's December 16th, 1930. You're with me, Teddy. You're with me."

It took a couple of minutes before Teddy stopped gasping and shaking and clutching his head. He'd shat himself too, and mortification made him apologize over and over. "Stop," Edward said, gripping his wrists. "Stop. I didn't think. It's my fault; you've nothing to apologize for. Dammit, _stop it_."

It took another minute, but Teddy finally had control of himself and managed a weak laugh. "I don't reckon this indignity is something vampires have to worry about."

"No," Edward said, half a smile in his voice. "I don't piss, shit, bleed, burp, pass gas, or belch."

"Sounds like a miracle."

The smile fell off Edward's mouth. "I can't eat either -- or not human food -- nor sleep, nor dream."

Teddy's eyebrow had gone up. "Please tell me your whanger still works, at least."

Edward couldn't help it; he laughed again. Teddy had always been able to make him laugh even at the worst of times -- and this counted as one of the worst times they'd ever faced together. "The whanger still works," Edward assured him.

"Well, that's something," Teddy replied.

"It's something," Edward agreed, not going into it. Instead, Edward lifted him back into his wheelchair. "We'll get you cleaned up, don't worry. But I think you can see that I'm pretty indestructible. Guns can't hurt me. A _wrecking ball _couldn't hurt me. I'd put a dent in it."

"That's why you feel . . . hard? Like concrete?"

"Yes. Now -- do you trust me?"

Teddy gave him a faint grin. "I always trusted you -- first and last."

"Then count to ten and I'll be back before you can finish." He handed Teddy his gun all the same -- just in case -- then raced back downstairs at vampire speed and divested one of the dead guards of his trousers, a man who looked about Teddy's size. Fortunately, there was no blood to stain them. Edward had seen to that already.

These he brought back to Teddy even as his friend reached, ". . . nine . . . "

"Here."

"Damn!" Teddy swore, starting. "It seems like you appear straight out of thin air!"

"Not quite -- I just move very fast. I don't turn into a bat, either."

The bat crack made Teddy smirk, and Edward bullied him into accepting help getting out of his own pants, although he made Edward carry him down to the bathroom so he could clean himself up. "Some things a man's gotta do himself." Edward understood pride, so he stood guard.

Fortunately, nobody from the Organization had come to check on Teddy since Edward's arrival a little less than an hour ago. They no doubt assumed him safe behind the machine-gun toting bully boys who'd been downstairs. Edward had acted as silently as he was thorough, however, so the only gunshot had been the one he'd set off himself, but by that point, nobody was left to hear except Teddy. Even so, Edward was twitchy. Now that he'd decided on a course of action, he wanted it accomplished yesterday, but had to work at human speed for Teddy's sake.

When Teddy was decent again, Edward carried him back to his office, then asked, "I assume there's actual money around here, not just figures in your ledger?"

"There's cash in the safe," Teddy said, expression curious, "but I don't have a key. Is that what you came here for? You still haven't told me. You wanted to rob Capone?"

"Not . . . exactly. Well, yes, I did come here to clean out the cash, but not because I need it. I was doing it to shut you down. Well, not _you_, but this particular bookie joint."

"You were going to kill me?"

"No." Edward would have blushed if he still could have. "No. I was just going to take the cash and distribute it to the needy for Christmas." These days, there were plenty of needy.

"So," Teddy said, "you were going to take the cash and leave me behind to face the music?"

"Not _you_," Edward replied, almost desperate in his own defense because Teddy understood the implications exactly and the familiar full lips had thinned. "Not you. I'd never leave you behind. We'll take the cash and you and your mom can use it to build a new life -- far from here. Out of Capone's reach."

"There's very little of America that's out of Capone's reach, Eddie."

"I'll make him think you died."

"How?"

"Just . . . trust me."

Unlike before, Teddy didn't look quite as trusting. "If I'd been any other man, you wouldn't be doing this. You'd have taken the money and run, leaving him to Capone's tender mercies."

"But it wasn't any other man."

"Don't dodge, Edward." His gray eyes were hard. "If not me, it could've been a man like me. Not everybody in the Organization is there by choice."

"The muscle-men downstairs enjoy their work -- "

"But they aren't everybody working for Capone. I've broken the law -- I won't pretend I haven't -- but I'm no butcher." His gaze was steady on Edward from his wheelchair. "Do you have any idea what Capone would've done to me? How he'd have killed me? Not quickly. Being killed by you would've been kinder. If you're going to play judge and jury, have the good grace to be executioner too."

Shamed into full defensive mode, Edward said, "I am the executioner most of the time. And I can tell the difference between a good man and a bad one."

Teddy didn't even have to scoff. One word and his tone conveyed it all. "_How?_"

"A . . . a gift. When I became a vampire, I became able to read minds. I know what people are thinking at any given moment, so I know their motivations."

"You do? Do you read minds constantly? Are you reading mine now? If so, why are we having this conversation at all? Can't you just . . . get it out of my head?"

Edward blinked. "Er, it's usually polite to stay out of minds if I can, but I can read them when I want to." Nonetheless, Teddy's harsh questions had pulled him up short, made him think. In fact, he _hadn't_ read the minds of the men downstairs, not deeply. He'd skimmed them to see if they were aware of him, no more. He'd needed to eliminate them so he'd eliminated them. Now he asked himself what he'd have done if the man behind the bookie desk hadn't been Teddy? Would he have troubled to look deeply into his mind either -- or just assumed?

Teddy was watching him as if he could guess the direction of Edward's thoughts even without Edward's gift, but they'd known each other a very long time. "Would you have saved me if you didn't know me?" he asked now.

"Yes," Edward said. He wanted to believe it, and needed Teddy to believe it, but when he reachedfor Teddy's thoughts, he found doubt -- of him, of his motives, and of just what Teddy had let himself in for. This was Edward, yes, Teddy was thinking, but Edward stuck at seventeen still seeing things in black and white, looking for ultimate truth and philosopher kings despite being able to see into the thoughts of others. Teddy couldn't read minds but knew better. Most people were neither good nor bad but something of both -- complicated. He'd stopped believing in Plato's fairy tales long ago, winged souls and shadows of perfection on a cave wall. People muddled along as best they could, and truth was relative.

All Edward's careful justifications, his certainties and arrogances, and his belief that he was protecting the innocent by eliminating the evil -- it all came crashing down. He wasn't Robin Hood. He was a murderer, plain and simple.

He hung his head. "I wanted to help. I just . . . I wanted to make something right in the world. I have . . . I have these special powers. And I'm damned already -- a monster. I have no soul. I may as well do what I can to save those with a prayer of heaven."

Teddy's eyebrow flickered and he pulled out a cigarette, lighting it. "You're still as melodramatic as you always were." But this was said with a fond exasperation as he blew smoke. "Edward, you're not a monster -- or no more of one than any of us. But being . . . whatever you are" -- he gestured in place of an explanation -- "doesn't make you a god, either. Stop acting like one."

Edward had no reply to that, so he changed the subject. "At least let me get you and your mom out of town, set you up in San Francisco."

Teddy sighed. "You haven't left me with much of an option -- not that I'm complaining. I've no reason to stay here beyond nostalgia. I'll go wherever you go."

"Then show me the safe. We don't need a key."


	3. Beauty

Edward, Teddy and Mary Wells -- and a small chunk of Al Capone's money -- departed Chicago within four hours. A conflagration left bodies burned past recognition in the Southside office building, and if Capone naturally assumed foul play, two months after the incident, he was arrested for contempt of court before he could do much about it. When he was released, he had bigger fish to fry, then was arrested for tax evasion in June, which conviction proved to be his final downfall.

The Volturi never found out about the entire incident.

In San Francisco, Teddy started a modest accounting firm under the name "Masen." It had been Edward's last gift. Carlisle had given him a new life and the name Cullen. Now he gave Teddy a new life (if less eternal) and the name Masen.

It took a few months for Teddy and his mother to find their feet. By that point, spring had come -- a time of new beginnings. Edward had learned his lesson and planned to return to Esme and Carlisle if they'd have him back. His last day in the city, he and Teddy visited the Santa Cruz Boardwalk by the bay. It was perfect weather . . . at least for Edward -- gray thunder heads threatening rain, and the crowds of tourists come for the Giant Dipper Rollercoaster were thinner than they might otherwise have been. Few cast more than a glance at the tall boy so unusually pale in sun-drenched California. He wore sunglasses to hide his eyes, which were still slightly red even if he'd already returned to a non-human diet. It was harder than he remembered, but he had Teddy for inspiration and there was a certain irony in a vampire looking to a former mobster as a role model.

Yet if Teddy had once claimed Edward as his beautiful one, his inspiration to a life of the higher mind, it was _Teddy_ whom Edward had always looked up to -- looked up to still. Edward might have saved Teddy's life, but Teddy had saved Edward's soul if he had still one -- a point he remained doubtful about. Teddy had no doubts. "All men have souls, Eddie," he said now, taking up a debate they'd engaged in off and on for the past four months. "If you lacked a soul, you'd have drained me dry within minutes of our first meeting."

"But I _did_ kill people," Edward said softly, glancing around to be certain nobody was close enough to overhear. "A lot of people. That doesn't make me good. I'm damned."

Teddy didn't answer immediately, but Edward could hear what was running through his head**:** _No less than a man who loves men; at least you tried to kill for the right reasons, even if it was naïve._

Edward debated whether he should respond to the thought. Teddy knew Edward's talents, but Edward wasn't sure how well he understood the full ramifications of them. Nonetheless, Teddy's proclivities were the big pink elephant in the room and had been since their re-meeting. Edward had never told Teddy that he'd read the letter, and Teddy had never confided to Edward about the direction of his affections, nor had either mentioned that long-ago kiss in Teddy's bedroom. They avoided touching.

And Edward was tired of it. So now, he stopped walking to face Teddy, who spun his own wheelchair to look up at Edward. Nobody was anywhere near them. "I know," Edward said simply. "I can read minds, remember. I know what you are -- how you feel about me, and other men. I know." Teddy's face had paled slightly, but he didn't try to deny it. "I don't care, either," Edward told him. "I know _who_ you are, not just what you are. And you're my friend -- a good and brave man."

Teddy didn't seem to know exactly what say to that. He swung his chair away so he could look out at the bay. Gulls cried overhead and somewhere in the distance, thunder pealed. "I suppose it's moot to you now whether I draw the blinds. Neither of us is exactly respectable."

"You think it would matter to me if I were human?" Edward was offended.

Teddy just shot him an amused glance. "Wouldn't it?" The honesty of the question brought Edward up short, and before he could reply, Teddy went on, "It's not just lust, you know. It never was. Everything most men feel for women, I feel for men."

"I know."

"But I did -- do -- _desire_ you too. You look exactly like you did then. Paler, and I'm not used to the eyes, but you're the same otherwise, and just as beautiful."

"I know you desire me."

"It doesn't _bother_ you?" Teddy still wasn't looking at him. "I'm as queer as a two-dollar bill."

Edward turned his own eyes out to the water and considered carefully before answering. "No," he said finally. "Because you love me. It bothers me less, I think, than what the three young women over by the hotdog stand are thinking right now."

"They probably think you're a movie star on holiday from Hollywood."

"They do, actually. But I find it . . . repulsive, how they speculate about bedding me."

"You always were a bit of a prude, ace." But Teddy's lips had curled to give away his joke.

"As I recall, it was _you_ telling me I was girl crazy for collecting pictures of Mary Pickford."

"You were -- but only for girls at a distance. You wanted to put them on a pedestal and worship them from afar. I was a little less particular. Men like me can't exactly settle down with a mister, a dog, and a house with a white picket fence."

Edward grinned. "Maybe a day will come when you can."

"I doubt I'll live to see it."

"I could make sure you did," Edward blurted suddenly, speaking before his brain caught up with his tongue. "I could change you, make you like me."

"No," Teddy said, but with neither revulsion nor horror. It was simple refusal. "You said a vampire stays in the physical state he is at the time he's changed. I wouldn't go back to the age I was when you were the age you are. I'd be a thirty-one-year-old, overweight, balding amputee."

"But you might grow the leg back; we heal if we're damaged -- "

"Might?" Teddy glanced up at him. "I'd prefer not to gamble and wind up stuck forever in this damn chair." He shrugged. "Death doesn't scare me anymore, not really. I've thought a lot about it since dad died, and even before -- during the war, and when I came back only to find your whole family gone. I'm . . . content. Life isn't perfect, but it never is. And even if the world did change tomorrow and I could settle down with a mister, a dog, and a house with a white picket fence, the man I'd want to marry is undead." He shot Edward a worried glance, as if afraid he'd finally gone too far. "You said it didn't bother you."

"It doesn't," Edward replied on automatic. But Teddy's words _did_ bother him, if not perhaps in the way Teddy feared. They suggested hope, offering what he'd resented Carlisle for -- real love. "I might . . . I might even have taken you up on it, in a different world." And now it was Teddy's turn to struggle to conceal the shock shivering through his mind. "I loved you, you know -- I still do," Edward told him. "And I read your letter."

"What letter?" Teddy was clearly puzzled.

"The one you left me when you went to war." Edward could sense that Teddy was still confused, so he added, "In case you died."

"You read it? I told you not to read it!"

"You said you knew I wouldn't. But Teddy, you should have realized that was just an invitation." He shot his friend a grin. "I was touched, not upset." He didn't say that he'd also wondered at the time if it might be best for Teddy to earn his Beautiful Death. In fact, he'd almost forgotten ever thinking that at all. "The affection wasn't one-sided, not entirely. And if I have a soul, it's you who gave mine wings as much as any wings I gave yours. I loved you -- love you. The problem is just that I'm not sure I _desired_ you." He paused, rubbing his nose. "I wasn't sure what I felt, honestly. I can't . . . it's not in me to desire without love, but that last night in your bed . . . that was more than _platonic_. Pun intended. _Eros kai anteros. _ Do you remember?"

"I remember. Love and love returned."

Edward nodded.

They were both silent then for a while. Teddy lit a cigarette, blowing smoke away from Edward. He'd learned that Edward's now-sensitive nose found the smell a bit much. Finally, almost thoughtfully, he asked, "Did we miss our chance, do you think?"

Edward didn't reply immediately. Part of him wanted to say 'no,' part of him wanted to try. Another part feared it. "I might . . . I might break you if we tried more now. You've seen what I can do, Ted. With you, I have to take care -- always. I can't be thoughtless even for a moment. I don't trust myself, and even if I didn't break you, I might lose control in other ways -- especially now, so soon after drinking from humans. Better . . . better not try." He glanced at Teddy. "I'm sorry."

Teddy just nodded, and in his mind, Edward could see that he'd expected nothing else. That was the most tragic of all -- that he couldn't allow himself to hope, or to be angry when those hopes were dashed. As they headed back to the car, Edward laid a companionable hand on Teddy's shoulder. It might be a small thing, a minor gesture, but if he'd had to reject the possibility Teddy had thrown out for pragmatic reasons, he didn't want Teddy to think he was rejecting _him_.

When they'd reached the car, he bent down to rest his hands on the arms of Teddy's wheelchair where the car bulk concealed them from prying eyes. Then he pressed his lips to Teddy's, just as he had thirteen years ago. The kiss lasted barely a moment, but it was sweet, sweet -- and Teddy smelled exactly the way Edward remembered**:** of man and tobacco and sun.

* * *

For the next fifty years, Edward Cullen (né Masen) stayed away from Theodore Masen (né Wells). They corresponded by letter quite a lot, but never again met in the flesh. A second world war had come and gone, then Korea, the Red Scare, the Civil Rights movement including the Stone Wall Riots, the Vietnam War, and the Summer of Love. The Cold War was in full swing -- Nixon had resigned, Ford had lost to Carter, and Carter had lost to Reagan ushering in a new, more conservative era. But in the liberal atmosphere of San Francisco, Ted Masen had stopped giving a damn what others thought around 1965 when he'd finally retired and quit keeping up appearances. He'd had his fair share of lovers before and one or two after, but none had lasted. There was never a mister and a dog and a house with a white picket fence. He preferred his cats and his third-floor apartment on Market Street overlooking the streetcars that reminded him of old Chicago.

Yet for all he stayed away from Teddy physically, Edward remained well aware of the goings-on in Teddy's life, by letter or by other means. Now and then, he'd debated going to see Teddy again but always decided against it, until Alice warned him he'd better go this time in late September of 1983, only a week before Edward's vampire anniversary. The world had changed a lot since he'd been human, and Teddy had been in a nursing home for two years fighting cancer and a failing body, although his mind still ran sharp. Most of their contemporaries were long dead. "I hang on from sheer cussedness," he'd written to Edward last year. Now, Edward claimed to be a grandson in order to gain admittance.

It took only a moment for Teddy to recognize the figure standing in the doorway, but if not for the name on the door, Edward might not have known him. Until he saw the eyes. Faded from age or not, they were still the no-nonsense gray Edward had loved since boyhood. "Howdy, old man," Teddy rasped. His voice was bad now.

Seating himself on the bedside, Edward took one of Teddy's hands in his. Poor circulation made them almost as cold as Edward's own, but Edward could still hear Teddy's heart. Thump-thump, thump-thump. Stubborn. "How are you?"

"Dying," Teddy replied despite the steady heartbeat.

"Not right now -- "

"Oh, not now, but soon. I told them to stop the chemo treatments. It's useless and just making me sick. There's a point at which it's time to die with a little dignity. That's what the hospice workers call it, you know -- dying with dignity."

Edward tried not to snort. "Then I suppose I can give you the present I brought. It won't matter." He pulled a pack of unfiltered Camels out of his breast pocket, still sealed in their 1918 box.

Astonished, Teddy took it. "Where on earth did you find these?"

"You left them behind by accident, I think, when you shipped out. I found them in your room back behind your desk. Sentimentality, or superstition, but I picked them up to save until you came home. As long as I kept them, I believed you'd come back alive. Later, I didn't have any use for them myself, but I still kept them."

"Maybe your superstition was right," Teddy said, opening the box to pull out one short, fat old cigarette and lift it to his lips. It took him three tries to light it. "Close the door," Teddy said. "Smoking's not allowed in here. The head nurse'll kill me quicker than the cancer."

Edward did as he said, and he took a long drag, eyes closed in pure delight. "It's been too long since I had one of these, stale or not." Teddy had stopped smoking sometime in the early '70s, albeit too late and the cancer had come anyway. "This was the good stuff, none of that filtered-within-an-inch-of-its-life crap they sell now."

"I wouldn't know," Edward said with amusement.

"Do you remember? What it tasted like?"

"A little -- but not really. Too far in the past. I preferred Luckies anyway; that, I do remember."

Teddy finished his smoke and they talked of many things, most inconsequential. It wasn't about what they said as they wrote frequently enough that Edward was up on all Teddy's gossip, and Teddy on his. Teddy teased him about the White Sox clinching the American League West title. "When are you going to give up on those jinxed Cubs, Eddie? The last time they won a Series you were seven years old!"

"I have a soft spot for underdogs. And at least we don't win ugly. Or use the damn DH. We play ball the way it was _meant_ to be played."

Teddy laughed, which turned into a deep cough, and Edward held him until it passed, then he said, "We win _scrappy_. That's how you survive life -- look at me. Underdogs may be romantic, but if they lose, they're still losers. Don't be afraid to win ugly, Eddie, as long as you win."

After a while, he tired. "Read me Plato," he said, nodding towards the bedside table where an old, worn book lay.

Edward picked it up and opened it to their favorite passage. The pages fell apart to the right spot almost without coaxing. An old cigarette card was placed there -- a leaping salmon. "'_Do you know why the salmon leaps?_'" he read softly. "I remember."

He set the card aside and turned to the book. Teddy's eyes were closed but he was clearly awake and listening. Edward read until he was certain Teddy was asleep, then set the book aside and studied his friend's face.

Past the shock of age, he was still Teddy. He had the same wide, square face, a bit puffy from the chemo. The hair that had once been light brown had long ago fallen out or turned gray. Age spots dotted his skin but the eyes were the same, the shape of them, crinkled at the corners from laughing. His life hadn't been easy, but Teddy had always displayed a certain doggedness. He _hadn't _taken his father's escape, instead shouldering the responsibility of living even if it had meant compromises that ate at his conscience. Death hadn't been an option, no more than for Esme, or Jasper or Alice, or Emmett, or even Rosalie for that matter. Sometimes Edward thought everyone in his family had faced greater challenges than he had. Life had coddled him, and perhaps he was bitter and cynical because he'd faced so little _true_ adversity.

He wouldn't have Teddy with him much longer. Edward didn't need Alice to tell him that. His friend's fire was fading, and at his loss, Edward would become even less human. But he would carry Teddy in his heart just as he'd once told Teddy that Teddy carried him. Teddy would become his Ideal, his personal image of the Good, in part because he wasn't a god. He was just a man. Plato had been wrong about that.

_This_ was beauty. Aged, infirm, crippled -- _weathered _-- and perfect in all its imperfections. This, Edward would never have if he lived ten thousand years. He'd be eternally young, eternally cold, eternally imperfect in his perfection. Plato's Ideal Form, and inhuman with it. Only in living and change did one find the Good, and Edward didn't care about remembering Teddy as he'd been when they were boys. He wanted to remember _this_ -- this old man lying fragile against white sheets. Here was Beauty, shining in company with the Celestial Forms.

Edward took the sleeping Teddy's hand, veined and thick-knuckled with arthritis, and kissed the back of it. "Sleep peacefully, old friend."

He departed shortly after, although he'd be back the next day, and the one after that for as long as Teddy had left. On the way home, he dropped by a hat shop, the sort that carried ballcaps for every team under the sun, pro or college. There, he found a White Sox cap and bought it, returning to his hotel before the sun came out from behind the clouds. He'd surprise Teddy tomorrow.

He got a call from the nursing home a little after ten that evening. Theodore Mitchell Masen had passed away in his sleep at 9:26 p.m. Apparently, he'd never woken after Edward had left. Edward went down to the home to take care of any arrangements, then rode a streetcar to the pier and put on the cap, pulling out a cigarette from the old pack of Camels that had still been on the bedside table. He hadn't smoked in sixty-five years and wasn't sure what the effect would be on his stone body, but the taste was sharp and strong, like love.

* * *

**  
Historical Notes:** My thanks to Prof H for pointing me towards the Encyclopedia of Chicago, from which comes much of the historical info. Once upon a time, cigarette cards were issued with the fragile packs to stiffen them and prevent breakage. Given the human interest in collecting, they quickly became all the rage during the years leading up to the first world war and after, but their production stopped with World War II and paper rationing. Later bubble-gum and tea cards replaced them as pop media culture. As for smoking itself, nobody much realized then it was unhealthy and there were no age restrictions on purchasing cigarettes, so Edward isn't doing anything illegal or even rebellious by smoking at 17. Although I made the Masens Methodists in "This is My Beloved Son," I needed them here to be a little more tolerant of drinking, so I changed their allegiance to Episcopalian; it's a minor point but I figured I should explain.

Mary Pickford and Thomas Meighan were famous silent film stars, and ironically, Kristen Stewart (who's playing Bella Swan) looks just a little like Mary Pickford in features. I couldn't resist some Cubs humor; the 1918 team _was_ a fantastic team even if the Red Sox had the Babe come Series time. Edward doesn't call Rigley Field that because it wasn't named Rigley Field yet. The DH or designated hitter wasn't instituted until 1973, and only in the American League, which is the league of the White Sox. Jackson Park Highlands is, today, predominantly African-American, but in Edward's time, it was exclusively WASP and securely upper-middle class, if not society-page residential. Flush toilets were found in the homes of the affluent by 1910 or even earlier, but were usually located in the basement. They didn't move "upstairs" till post-war, 1920s new construction.

The poem Teddy quotes is Emily Dickenson's "I Can Wade Grief," and the Plato passages come from _The Phaedrus. _While the Benjamin Jowett translation might read as old-fashioned to us, it would likely have been the translation used by Edward and Teddy so it's the one I quote. I haven't messed with pronouns, so a bit of explanation. Plato _did_ use the masculine for the beloved, but in Greek, the word for "soul" (_psuchê_) is automatically feminine, whether a man's or woman's. Plato assumed the traditional _erastes/eromenos_ pairing of an older (male) lover and younger (male) beloved. It is in _The Phaedrus_ that we get the odd usage "_anteros,_" or erotic love for the lover returned on the part of the beloved. Usually the term used for the beloved's affection is "_philos_," or non-erotic passionate love.


End file.
